


All Together Now

by standbygo



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Declarations Of Love, Falling In Love, First Kiss, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by Music, Johnlock Roulette, M/M, Mind Palace, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-30
Updated: 2015-07-30
Packaged: 2018-04-11 23:41:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4457003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/standbygo/pseuds/standbygo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A love story, in four chapters, with two verses and a chorus of All Together Now by the Beatles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One, two, three, four/Can I have a little more?

**Author's Note:**

> Please do not redistribute my fanfiction on other archives or sites without my express permission. Thank you.

“For God’s sake, John, I’m fine.”

“Shut up. Not one more word.”

They walked slowly up the stairs to 221B, Sherlock’s arm slung over John’s shoulders. He told himself he was leaning on John to make John feel better.

“All right?” John said. His face was more lined and creased than usual. “Keep up the pressure on the wound.”

“Yes, yes. Stop fussing.”

They made it to the flat and John steered Sherlock into the kitchen. “Sit up on the table, so I can see properly,” John said. He started to clear a space for Sherlock.

“Don’t move that, it’s at a delicate stage in my-”

John fixed him with a terrible glare and Sherlock stopped speaking. It was just easier to let John have his own way when he was like this; the alternative was at least two weeks of John frowning at everything and clipped answers to perfectly reasonable questions.

He remained silent while John cleared half of the table of his experiments and helped Sherlock to sit up on the table. “Can you get your shirt off? I’m going to scrub up and get my kit.”

“I’m not a _child_ , John,” Sherlock said peevishly, precisely because he _did_ feel like a child somehow, his legs dangling off the edge of the table. John pursed his lips in a way Sherlock could not read, and left the room without another word.

Sherlock carefully peeled his ruined shirt off, throwing it towards the bin and missing. He pulled John’s balled-up jumper briefly away from the wound in his side, just enough to glimpse at the slice in his skin that Atkinson’s knife had opened. The blood welled up immediately, and he pressed the jumper back hastily just as John re-entered.

“You looked, didn’t you?” John said.

Sherlock said nothing, but sat up straighter. John sighed, and replaced the jumper with some clean gauze, pressing in hard enough to make Sherlock gasp. He threw the bloody jumper towards the bin, and Sherlock noted with some satisfaction that John missed it too.

“Ready, then?” John said.

“For the stitches?” Sherlock said, confused. Surely the bleeding had to stop first?

“No, for me yelling at you.”

“Oh.”

“Sherlock, seriously, that was damn stupid. You knew he was armed.”

“I thought it was a carving knife.”

“What?”

“I misidentified the knife. I thought it was a carving knife, and twenty centimeters long. I based my defense strategy upon that length. It was actually a ham slicer, and was actually twenty-five centimeters. If it was a carving knife I could have evaded his attack successfully.”

John was staring at him. “A ham slicer.”

“Yes.”

“You got cut because a serial killer cannibal had a knife five centimeters longer than you estimated.”

“Well… yes.”

John pressed his lips together and returned his attention to cleaning the wound. Sherlock sat, tall and proud, until he heard John snort, the puff of air breaking against the damp skin of his side. He looked down at John, surprised.

“Berk,” John said, a grin spreading across his face, the lines in his face smoothing out. “You are… one of a kind, you are.”

Sherlock let his spine uncoil a little as he laughed along with John. The atmosphere in the room warmed a little.

John finished cleaning the cut and applied steri-strips in the now not-uncomfortable silence. When John finished, Sherlock stretched tentatively, moving his stiff muscles around to test their limitations. John cleaned up the debris from their makeshift A&E, throwing the rubbish and the bloody clothes into a garbage bag and tying it tightly. Very tightly. Tying it very tightly indeed.

“John,” Sherlock said cautiously after a moment, “I think that bag should be secure enough by now.”

“Hmm.” John looked up from the bag, his face solemn again. “Seriously, Sherlock. That was – you’re lucky he just sliced the skin, rather than angling it into you. Far too near your kidney for comfort. Twenty or twenty five centimeters, it – you could have been-”

John seemed to have forgotten how to assemble a complete sentence. Sherlock stared at him, confused and curious. He opened his mouth to protest, but John held up a hand.

“I know, it’s what we do. The Work is important – I know that. I know that. It’s just – seeing that knife, I just-”

John looked down at the surface of the table, then raised his hand and cupped the back of Sherlock’s neck. “Just – please be careful. Okay? I just – please.”

John’s hand hesitated on Sherlock’s neck, then squeezed very gently. His hand slid along Sherlock’s trapezius, paused again on the crest of his shoulder, briefly kneading the boney protrusion. Then his hand fell away.

“I’m off to bed. Good night,” John said, and left the room without looking back.

+

Sherlock felt frozen in place. He was dimly aware that he was blinking rapidly, processing what had just happened.

He checked his memories for other occasions in which John had touched him. Handshake: once, when they first met. Medical: several occasions when Sherlock had been injured during a case; each thoroughly professional and usually with a gloved hand. Accidental: numerous, generally while reaching for the tea pot at the same time, or fingers touching when passing a phone or mug or miscellaneous object from hand to hand. All brief. All innocuous.

This touch was different. It had purpose. Intent. It had lingered, as though John had not wanted to break the connection.

Sherlock felt the precise location of the touch, its path across his skin. It felt hotter than the surrounding skin; like an acid burn, but pleasant, not painful. Sherlock realized that he did not wish the sensation to fade away.

This was new data. Both the touch itself and Sherlock’s reaction to it.

He took a sharp breath in and opened his eyes, though he hadn’t been aware of them closing. It was now dark in the flat – at least an hour, perhaps two, had passed since John had gone to bed. He glanced at his watch and was surprised to see that it was past one in the morning. He was stiff and sore, and his legs were buzzing from lack of circulation, his feet still dangling off the edge of the table. It was now cool in the flat, the heater having shut off at midnight. Still shirtless, Sherlock’s skin was pebbling with the chill, his skin pulling unpleasantly around the stitches in reaction to the cold. Even though it was relatively early for him, he decided he wanted to go to bed.

He went through his nightly routine without being conscious of the individual acts – urinating, washing his hands and face, flossing, brushing teeth, changing into pyjamas – until he was in bed and under the covers. He arranged himself in his usual sleeping position, on his back, staring up at the ceiling. He imagined John in his own bed upstairs, with only four metres of space, wood, and plaster between them. He thought of John sleeping: on his right side, his right arm tucked under the pillow, blankets up to his neck, his left foot sticking out of the blankets.

Sherlock turned onto his right side, tucked his arm under the pillow, pulled the blanket up and extending his leg until his foot was exposed to the air. He considered this position for a moment, surprised at how comfortable he felt like this, even though it wasn’t his usual sleeping posture. He was suddenly terribly, terribly tired, and he allowed himself to drift away.


	2. Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten/I love you

When Sherlock woke, he realized he was more or less in the same position, with some differences. He had tucked his foot back under the blankets. He had shuffled backwards somehow and rather than being in the middle of the bed, as was his wont, he was on the right side of the bed. His left arm was extended towards the left side of the bed.

Just as he had absorbed this information, he heard the rattle of keys, the door of the flat opening and shutting, and John’s tread scuttling down the stairs. It was 7:15 am then, and John was off to the surgery. Sherlock tried to recall the last time he had slept six hours without interruption, and could not. He chalked it up to the injury.

He rose and padded out into the kitchen. He saw a mug in the sink, traces of black coffee along the bottom, still warm. A plate with bread crumbs. A knife, butter on the right side of the blade. In the rubbish, an orange peel. He rubbed the peel between his fingers, his nose twitching at the sour-sweet scent.

He wasn’t hungry, but made tea and toast and ate it anyway.

He showered and carefully changed the dressing on his stitches. He dressed in his favourite suit and a crisp white shirt. He poured another cup of tea and returned to the sitting room. He sat in his chair, took a sip of tea. He did not look at John’s chair.

“Right,” he said to himself. “Gather the data.”

  * _Length of time since John had moved in – eleven months, fourteen days and some hours. (Number of hours difficult to determine: he had never decided whether John had ‘officially’ moved in when he brought his gun, or when he brought his clothes.)_
  * _Number of cases together – seventy two, with an 85.3% success rate. Prior to John moving in, his success rate had been 79.4%, so a marked improvement indeed._
  * _Number of dates John had been on since moving in – fifteen, with six more being second or third dates. All women._
  * _Length of time since last date –_ Sherlock frowned _– three months, seven days._



Interesting _._

  * _Number of times John had declared he was ‘not gay’ or some variant of that phrase – twelve._
  * _Length of time since last such declaration –_ Sherlock’s brows knotted _– three months, two days._



Sherlock felt his attention slipping, nudged aside by the memory of John’s hand on his shoulder. His skin carried the sensation like a brand. He shook himself a little, and altered his train of thought.

  * _Length of time since Sherlock had had skin to skin contact with a (living) human (apart from John) – two years, eight months, nine days. Eliminate medical personnel and recalculate – five years, one month, one day. Eliminate immediate family and recalculate – sixteen years, two months, seventeen days. Impressions of said contact – memory deleted. Therefore the contact had not been pleasant._



Sherlock could not imagine experiencing a touch such as John’s from the night before and choosing to delete it. The feel of callouses on John’s palm, the short but delicate fingers, close-cut nails _– stop. Focus._

Sherlock considered that he had twice now diverted from his thought process. The impact of the touch had clearly affected him. He allowed himself to review the moment – the warmth of John’s hand against his skin, the pressure of the squeeze of his neck and then his shoulder, the faint trace of fingertips against his arm as John released him –

He became aware that his heart beat was up, as was his inhalation rate. He recognized and identified the sensation with a sense of shock: it was similar to his cravings for cocaine during withdrawal. It was chemicals singing in his blood, calling to him, crooning his desire for _more, more_ into his inner ear.

Sherlock realized that that single touch had addicted him to John, and he wanted more.

The question was, did John?

Sherlock had always considered himself to be master of his body. He could control his hunger, his need for sleep, his need for drugs. He prided himself on not needing anything or anybody.

But now… now.

Sherlock recognized that he was no longer an objective observer of the moment. Any interpretation moving forward was coloured by his newly discovered addiction. But the facts, the _facts_! Three months and seven days. An abrupt drop from an average of one date per 11.76 days to zero.

Evidence. Indisputable. Logical.

But if he were wrong – and while he would never admit it out loud, he _was_ occasionally wrong – the results could be devastating. There may be other conclusions. John may have stopped dating because of The Work. Too busy with cases, plus the surgery. Yes. John was a sensible man. He would not want to –

“Sherlock?”

Sherlock’s eyes flew open. John was standing in the doorway, his hand on the doorknob. Sherlock blinked.

“Been thinking all day?” John said, pulling off his coat. “At least you got dressed this time.”

Sherlock stared at John. It must be snowing outside. John’s cheeks and nose were ruddy with cold. There were snowflakes in John’s hair.

“The hell with logic,” Sherlock said, and stood, and crossed to John, and kissed him.

John’s mouth didn’t move under his, as though he were a statue. As Sherlock abruptly broke the kiss and moved back, he saw John’s face frozen with shock, his mouth hanging open.

Wrong, _wrong, WRONG_ – stupid, _stupid, STUPID_ ran the clarion call in Sherlock’s head.

Shame and embarrassment and self-recrimination flooded his adrenal system, and he turned and fled the flat.


	3. Black, white, green, red/Can I take my friend to bed?

The shock rolled through John’s body, starting at his mouth, and spreading out to his cheeks, still numb with cold, then whipped along the entire surface of his skin. His feet felt nailed into place. His eyes were fixed straight ahead, unseeing.

Sherlock had kissed him.

He had spent the night before sleepless, and distracted for the whole of his shift, kicking himself for his poor judgement the night before. One moment of weakness, spurred on by the fear of Sherlock’s near-miss with Atkinson’s knife. He had meant to clasp Sherlock’s neck in a brother-at-arms manner, to emphasize his point about taking too many risks. A few seconds of contact, that’s all. And he found he couldn’t let go, couldn’t lift his hand. Even as a voice in his head chanted, ‘ _Let go, that’s enough, let go NOW_ ,’ his hand traced down Sherlock’s shoulder and arm, like a magnet clinging to steel.

Sherlock had never explicitly said so, but John had assumed that he was uncomfortable with being touched. Mrs. Hudson seemed to be the only exception, but she was clearly a mother figure. Sherlock never sought out contact with anyone else that John had witnessed.

So John knew that he would need to either apologize for the touch, or pretend it had never happened. He decided he would let Sherlock’s behaviour dictate how he should respond.

But now… now.

Sherlock had not ignored him, or shouted at him, or acted proud and disdainful – none of the reactions John had been expecting. Sherlock had kissed him instead.

And now… Sherlock was gone. John had been too stunned to notice Sherlock leaving the flat.

John swore and grabbed his coat. He ran down the stairs and into the street – no Sherlock in sight. It was dark and snow swirled through the light of the streetlamps. Sherlock could disappear in seconds if he wanted to, and he clearly wanted to tonight. He must have been embarrassed, assuming that John was about to reject him, when instead John had meant to… John wasn’t sure what he was going to do, but now Sherlock was gone.

John looked up and down Baker Street, trying to see Sherlock’s figure amongst the pedestrians. He swore again.

“Spare change, sir?”

John glanced at the young man leaning against the railings surrounding the café’s patio. He was about to turn away again when he saw that the man was staring at him intently.

“Change, sir?” he said again. This time John noticed the dip of his head to the left; hands with dirty fingernails and ratty gloves clutching an empty takeaway coffee cup, and a single finger pointing to the left.

John pulled out his wallet, hastily pushed a twenty pound note into the boy’s hand, and ran north up Baker Street.

He sprinted through the foot traffic, dodging around pedestrians, his shoes slipping slightly on the thin layer of snow on the pavement. He concentrated on his breathing, on checking the heads of the people on the street, on hoping that Sherlock hadn’t jumped into a cab.

Sooner than he had dared to hope, however, he saw a familiar curly head of hair up ahead. Sherlock was walking quickly but not running. His head was down, his hands in his pockets. He had left so quickly he hadn’t taken his coat, and his shoulders were rounded against the cold and the snow.

John put on one more burst of speed and pulled in front of Sherlock, who shied away like a startled dog.

“Sherlock, you git, you – it’s below zero, it’s snowing, you idiot, and-”

Sherlock’s eyes roamed everywhere but at John, and John realized that his breathless, harsh words and behaviour weren’t helping the situation. He forced himself to take a deep breath and calm himself.

“Just – please come home? I’m sorry, I just – come home, and we can talk. All right?”

Sherlock’s face was carefully devoid of emotion, but he couldn’t help looking pinched with cold. John could see that his lips were slightly blue. He felt guilt roll over in his belly. “Come on, you’ll catch your death,” he said, and pulled off his jacket and draped it over Sherlock’s shoulders.

Sherlock blinked, and looked down at the jacket’s sleeves, dangling uselessly near his elbows. “John, I-” he said, and John saw him shiver involuntarily, “I – I look ridiculous.”

John’s laugh fell out of his mouth with a gust. “Yes, you do,” he said. “Now let’s get home before the fashion police show up.”

Sherlock quirked a hesitant smile, and they turned back towards the flat.

+

They were silent during the short walk to Baker Street, both focusing on their feet, pretending to watch for ice. The silence held as they let themselves into the flat and climbed the stairs. Sherlock removed John’s jacket from around his shoulders and hung it up. They hesitated in the doorway, unable to look each other in the eye.

John realized Sherlock was waiting for him to take the first action, to set the scene.

“Come on, sit down for a bit,” he said. “We’ll talk, all right?”

Sherlock sat on the sofa jerkily, like a marionette. He sat carefully, back ramrod straight, his long hands resting on his knees, palms flat. His face seemed carefully neutral, but John imagined he could still see a touch of trepidation there. John sat next to him, angling slightly towards him. He realized that his own hands were knotted together, his fingers worrying at his knuckles, and he couldn’t seem to stop.

_I have no idea what to say_ , he thought.

“Um,” he said, and cleared his throat. “So. Earlier, when you – um. I’m afraid I wasn’t – I didn’t expect – I was just surprised, a bit, you know?” He didn’t seem to be able to look up from his hands. “I didn’t know that you – I mean, you’ve never seemed to-”

He glanced up at Sherlock, and was horrified to see his face morphing into an expression he had seem many times before. It was an expression of casual indifference, of bemusement, of disdain. He’d seen it directed at others, but never at himself. It was an expression that meant Sherlock was closing himself off. It meant, ‘ _Shields Up’_.

John rewound everything that he had just said, and realized that Sherlock thought John was letting him down easy. He knew what the next minute would bring: Sherlock would say loftily, “ _Never mind John, just delete it, not to worry, good night_ ,” and stride off to his room and shut the door firmly.

“Sod it,” John said, and leaned forward and kissed Sherlock.

Sherlock made a surprised noise against his mouth. John’s arms caught up with the rest of him, and wrapped themselves around Sherlock’s thin shoulders, pulling him in. He poured everything he couldn’t articulate with words into his mouth, his body.

John felt Sherlock exhale, a tiny puff of air through his nose against John’s cheek, and then he began to kiss back.

Sherlock’s lips were slightly chapped, and the tip of his nose still cold from outside, but John had never felt anything so sensual in his life. The kiss was, in turns, soft, quiet, passionate, demanding, frantic, deep, slow, sweet, and hot as hell.

_I nearly missed this_ , John thought. _I could have fucked everything up, I could have lost him_. Before this moment he could barely imagine his life without Sherlock; now he could hardly imagine not kissing him.

He had to get Sherlock closer, now. They were already pressed chest to chest, but John needed to feel Sherlock’s weight on top of him, feel their hips align, feel Sherlock’s thighs between his thighs. He leaned back to lie down on the sofa, pulling Sherlock back with him. Sherlock leaned into him, with a soft sigh that was almost a whine.

Then Sherlock overbalanced, and fell with an almighty crash to the floor.

“Oh God,” John said. “I’m sorry, are you-”

He peered over the edge of the sofa, and saw Sherlock sitting on the floor with a furious and affronted look on his face. A snort of laughter burst out of him before he could stop it.

Sherlock’s face slowly transformed from annoyance to amusement, and he grinned up at John before breaking into his low, rich, genuine laugh.

John giggled as he rolled to his feet, and helped Sherlock to stand.

“Bed?” he said.


	4. Pink, brown, yellow, orange, and blue/I love you.

The distance from the sitting room to Sherlock’s bedroom was perhaps four meters – not far at all. But somehow between those two points, the giggling, light mood dispersed and grew quiet and nervous. John turned to face Sherlock, and saw that his cheeks were flushed pink and his eyes were wide and unsure. He had never seen Sherlock look like that before.

“What happened, John?” Sherlock said quietly.

John pulled him close, stroked his hands up and down Sherlock’s back. “I don’t know,” he said. “But I know that it’s – fine. It’s all fine.”

“You’ve said that before,” Sherlock said with a shy smile.

“Still true.”

“I don’t mean just now – I mean, when you…” Sherlock bit at his lips, and John had to marvel at how vulnerable Sherlock was being, and that he was allowing John to see it. “I thought I’d ruined everything. Misinterpreted. Made a mistake.”

“I was surprised, that’s all, Sherlock,” John said, holding a firm eye contact with him. “That’s all. I thought I’d fucked up last night too, and I wasn’t expecting you to do that. But for the record, I am very, very glad you did, all right?”

“But I don’t know anything about – about this, John,” Sherlock said, an edge of frustration entering his voice. “And I ran away, like a coward, instead of-”

“None of that,” John said sternly. “We were both startled, all right? Just – forget my first reaction, okay? Delete it.”

“It doesn’t work like that, John!” Sherlock snapped. “I’ve explained the method of loci to you over and over. You don’t just delete a few seconds, you have to delete the whole incident, and I don’t _want_ to delete the whole thing, because-” Sherlock stuttered and stopped, staring at John. “I don’t want to delete the whole thing because everything else was so _good_.”

John felt his heart swell up as Sherlock looked into his eyes. “It was, yeah,” he said. “Do you want it to get even better?”

“Oh God, yes,” Sherlock said.

They surged together again, suddenly frantic and desperate. Lips, hands, tongues touched, stroked, explored. John was dimly aware of Sherlock pushing him towards the bed, and falling, and pulling Sherlock on top of him. Sherlock’s weight on top of him somehow anchored him and elevated his excitement at once. He tilted his hips up into Sherlock’s and felt their cocks rub together through far too many layers of fabric.

Sherlock groaned into John’s mouth and sat up. “Off,” he said, his hands moving to John’s shirt buttons. John reached for Sherlock’s shirt as well, but their arms collided in the space between them. Sherlock was able to unbutton and part John’s shirt while John was still fumbling at Sherlock’s third button. “For God’s sake,” Sherlock muttered, and pulled at his own shirt until it ripped. The tearing sound combined with the sight of Sherlock’s exposed chest made John’s cock swell up hard against his zip.

“Oh God, Sherlock,” he gasped, and reached for Sherlock’s trouser buttons. “I need you, I need you, now, now, now.”

“Yes, God, yes,” Sherlock growled as he worked at John’s jeans. John lifted his hips and shoved his jeans and pants down, then reached for Sherlock, pulling his cock free. Sherlock groaned, loudly and lavishly, and John could feel the vibrations through his whole body. Then Sherlock touched his cock, and John moaned just as loudly.

He used his right hand to pull Sherlock back down to him. “Here,” he whispered hoarsely, “come here, together, like this, come on, come on, please.”

Sherlock understood, and leaned down and captured his mouth again in a searing kiss, while he shifted his hips until their cocks were pressed together. Sherlock’s large hand wrapped around them both, and John’s smaller hand wrapped around his. The precome made everything slick and smooth, and the combined pressure of their hands made John’s nerve endings spark.

“I’m close already, John, John-”

“Me too, Jesus,” John said, just as stars flooded his vision. “Don’t stop, don’t stop, I’m-”

He glanced down, and the sight of their cocks squeezed together in their combined fists was enough to send him over the edge. His breath emptied out of him in a gut wrenching groan. He fought to keep his eyes open and saw Sherlock’s cock spurt in tandem with his, their come falling in droplets together over John’s belly.

Sherlock collapsed beside him with a gusty exhalation. For a time, the only sound in the room with their breath, gradually slowing from a gallop to a sigh.

“John,” Sherlock whispered. “That was – that was-”

“Bloody marvellous?”

“Took the words right out of my mouth.”

They turned to each other and grinned, and kissed until calm and stillness returned to them.

John arranged Sherlock on his good shoulder, holding him close. He felt more at peace than he had felt in years, and he realized how much strain the avoidance had been causing all these years.

“Let’s rest for a bit,” he said, “then we’ll try that again, slower this time.”

“You’ll show me why they call you Three Continents Watson?”

“Shut it, you,” John said with a grin. He let a moment pass, then said softly, “Thank you for kissing me.”

“Thank you for touching me,” Sherlock whispered.

They both fell silent again. John felt himself falling asleep, but knew what he had to do before he did.

“Love you, Sherlock.”

“I love you John.”

They said it together, at the same time, and smiled at each other in wonder.

  

_End_

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] All Together Now](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8296051) by [aranel_parmadil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aranel_parmadil/pseuds/aranel_parmadil)




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